Search Engine Optimization Interview Questions

1.What is a Search Engine?

A.Search Engines are very critical key element useful to find out specific and relevant information through the huge extent of World Wide Web. Some major commonly used search engine: Google, Yahoo, Bing

2.Tell me something about Google.

A.Google is the world's largest and renowned search engine incorporating about 66.8% of market share. It was introduced in 1998 by students of Stanford Universitystudents Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The unique algorithmic ranking system is considered as its key of success. Besides Google Mail services there are various worthy and useful tools are being offered absolutely free which include Blogger, Feedburner, YouTube, Google Plus, Adsense, Webmaster Tools, Adword, Analytics and many more

3.Define SEO?

A. SEO is the abbreviated form of Search Engine Optimization. It is the set of process on account of which a website or web page is being constructed or optimized that helps them to enhance their appearance or visibility on top in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).

4.Explain distinct types of SEO practice?

A.Primarily two types of SEO are being sportedin practice Off-Page SEO and On-Page SEO. Off-page SEO is the method of earning backlinks from other websites in order to enhance the ranking of the site. This method includes various method of SEO including Blog posting, forum, article submission, Press release submission, classified and miscellaneous. On-Page SEO is the process of optimizing a website which includes on-site work such as writing content, title, description, ALT tag, Meta tags as well as ensuring web-page code and design which can be indexed and crawled by search engines properly.

5.What are the different techniques used in Off Page SEO?

A.There are lots of techniques used in Off-page SEO work. Major Techniques are:Directory Submission ,Social Bookmarking, Blog Post ,Article Post ,Press Release Submission, Forum Posting, Blog Comment and Deep link Directory Submission.

6.What are Meta Tags?

A.HTML meta tags are usually referred as tags of page data which sits between opening and closing head tags of a document's HTML code.Actually these are hidden keywords who sits in the code. These are invisible to visitors but are visible and readable by Search Engines.

7.Difference between keyword & keyword phrase?

A.The keyword term is basically concerned with a one-word term, on the other hand a keyword phrase considered as employment of two or more words combination. Therefore, it is very confounded to get high ranking in account of one-word keyword term until the one-word keyword has little online competition. Therefore, this practice is not encouraged to employ. In order to drive more traffic and top ranking in SERP it is recommended to employ keyword phrase.

8.What do you know about Black Hat SEO?

A.In order to attain High Ranking in search engine result page, websites go for various methods and techniques which are characterized by two categories. The methods which are implemented and acceptable according to search engine guidelines are White Hat SEO, on the other hand, the method which are less acceptable or instructed to avoid in search engine guidelines are "Black Hat SEO".

9.Can you tell me some Black Hat SEO techniques?

A.Some Black Hat SEO techniques are: Keyword Stuffing ,Cloaking ,Doorway Pages or Gateway Pages ,Link Farming and Hidden Text, etc.

10.What is spider?

A.Spider also called as bot, crawler or robot is a set of computer program that browses the World Wide Web in methodical and orderly fashion as well automatically scan the webpages and website for updated content and download a copy to its data center to index.

11.Name the bots (spider) of major search engine?

A. The name of bots/spider of Google search engine is GoogleBot, Yahoo Slurp for Yahoo search and BingBot for Bing search engine.

12.Can you differentiate nofollow and dofollow?

A."Nofollow" link is exactly vice-versa of dofollow link. These are non-crawling link which is not passed by search engine bots and hence cant be cached or indexed. It is obvious when we wish to prevent a link from crawling and indexing. "Dofollow" link is a kind of hyperlink which says all search engine crawlers to pass through which also put an impact over page rank. When we opt to employ or attempt to achieve a dofollow link then it is counted by search engines and sits in the eye of Google, Bing, MSN, Yahoo etc. as a backlink for your website and enhances your site ranking.

13.Can you differentiate nofollow and dofollow?

14.Define Page Rank?

A.PageRank is a set of algorithm for link analysis named after Larry Page and employed by Google search engine towards defining a numerical value from 1 to 10 to each component of hyperlinked documents like the world wide web. The value accepts only round figure that means decimal are not allowed. Page rank is calculated by their inbound links.

15.Establish a difference between PR & SERP.

A.PR : is Page Rank which is defined by quality inbound links from other website or webpages to a web page or website as well as say the importance of that site. SERP : stands for Search Engine Result Page is the placement of the website or webpage which is returned by a search engine after a search query or attribute.

16.What is Cache?

A.Cache is the process performed by search engine crawler at a regular interval of time. It used to scan and take snapshot of each page over world wide web as well as store as a backup copy. Almost every search engine result page incorporates a cached link for every site. However, clicking over cached link show you the last Google cached.

17.Define ALT tag?

A.The ALT attribute also called as ALT tag are employed in XHTML and HTML documents in context of defining alternative text that is supposed to be rendered when the element cant be rendered to which it is applied. One great feature of ALT tag is that it is readable to "screen reader" which is a software by means of which a blind person can hear this. In addition, it delivers alternative information for an image due to some specific reason a user cant view it, such as in case of a slow connection and an error occurred in the source attribute.

18.What are the aspects in SEO?

A.The main aspect of SEO is divided into two classes: SEO On-Page and SEO Off-Page . SEO On-Page : includes Meta tag, description, keywords optimization, site structure and analysis, etc. SEO Off-Page : aspect is Keyword Research, unique and quality content, link building through Blog Comments, Blog Posting, Article submission, Press Release, Classified posting, Forum posting.

19.What do you know about RSS?

A.RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication is useful to frequently publish all updated works including news headlines, blog entries etc. This RSS document also known as web feed, feed or channel that incorporate summarized text including metadata i.e. authorship and publishing dates etc. However, RSS feeds make the publishers flexible by syndicating the content automatically. There is a standardized file format XML that lets the information to be published once which can be visible to several distinct programs. Also, this makes readers more ease to get updates timely by allowing them to subscribe from their favorite sites.

20.How would you define Alexa?

A.Alexa is a California based subsidiary company of Amazon.com which is widely known for its website and toolbar. This Alexa toolbar congregates browsing behavior data and send it to website, where the data is analyzed and stored and create reports for companys web traffic. Also, Alexa provides data concerned with traffic, global ranking and other additional information for a website.

21.How can you achieve Google Page Rank?

A.Generally, Google Page Rank is based on inbound links, therefore, the more backlinks you congregate higher your page rank will be. Also, it is influenced by rank of a page which is linked to you. One other thing to consider is that the older your website will be, it will be more favorable and trusted by Google. Google rewards those websites who incorporate lots of pages, tons of incoming link and also healthy quantity of internal links to other pages within the site. In respect of SEO projects, it is relatively not so significant but delivers a picture about work to perform towards earning inbound links.

22.Why the Title Tag in Website is valuable?

A. In our SEO efforts Title Tags are very earnest. It is highly recommended to include a Unique Title that exactly says about the contents sits on that page. It is valuable because this is a thing which appears in the search engine result section and tells the user & search engine, what is on this page.

23.What is Site Map and distinguish between HTML sitemap and XML sitemap?

A.A sitemap incorporates list of webpages which are accessible to users or crawlers. It might be a document in any form employed as a tool for planning either a web page or web design that enables them to appear on a website as well as typically placed in a hierarchical style. This helps search engine bots and users to find out the pages on a website. The site map renders our website more search engine friendly as well as enhances the probability for frequent indexing. HTML sitemap can be incorporated directly in a web page for users flexibility and can be implemented through proper design. On the other hand, XML sitemap is useful only for search engine crawlers or spiders and doesnt visible to users. It sits in the root of the website.

24.Whats the significance of Robots.txt file in a website?

A.Robots. text file is considered as a useful convention to prevent cooperating web robots and web crawlers from accessing all or part of a website or its content for which we dont want to be crawled and indexed but publicly viewable. It is also employed by search engines to archive and categorize website and to generate a rule of no follow regarding some particular areas of our websites.

25.How Keywords are implemented for optimization?

A.The best way to opt and implement keywords is to designate those keywords which are popular, relevant to our content, comprises high search volume and effective. Stuffing and other employment of keywords must be avoided. In order to get best result and effect, our pages shouldn't contain a keyword density more than 3-4%. Including keywords in title and description is highly recommended.

26.What is cloaking?

A.Cloaking is a technique which is used in Black Hat SEO that enables to create two distinct pages where the page content being presented to search engine spider is different from that which is being presented to the users browser. These techniques do not come under the guidelines of search engines.

27.Do you know about Blog Flipping?

A.Blog Flipping is the practice for sale a blog when it becomes famous and popular as well as driving healthy amount of traffic.

28.What you opined about HTML either it is Case Sensitive or Case Insensitive?

A.HTML is case Insensitive. It doesnt matter and deliver identical result either you write in Upper Case or Lower Case.

29.Under what circumstances you would intend to eliminate pages from search engines through robots.txt vs. Meta robots tag?

A.Generally, I would continue to employ robots.txtin order to make search engine indexing a directory on a website. This might be often a directory that is concerned with admin function or incorporate contents only in the form of script or image gallery. Generally, robots.txt is employed to prevent a directory and its sub-folders and files to crawl by search engine bot as well as Meta robots tag for a specific web page.

30.What things are significant in organically ranking a website?

31.What things are significant in organically ranking a website?

A.Basically there are various things that are being employed for organically ranking a website which can be classified in 3 distinct categories: Website content:It must be quality and unique content as well as most be well optimized and well structured. Website structure:This includes TAGS, clear navigation, ensuring usability, validation of HTML errors and miscellaneous. Backlinks:You can create a link to anywhere but prior to this it is obvious to ensure for relevant site and healthy link.

32.What will be your step when the company website you are working with wish to migrate its all content to a new domain?

A.First of all I would update the previous website with a permanent redirect to new page for each and every page. Later eradicate previous content from search engines in the context of avoiding duplicate content issues.

33.Whats your opinion about link buying?

A.Generally I avoid this practice. Though other means of paid marketing are also available. The process of link buying is not liked by search engines. It doesnt come under the guidelines of search engine.

34.What strategies would you implement for backlinks?

A.I would request for backlinks to a competitors relevant website as well as a provide reciprocal link if required. In addition, I would attempt to submit a press release, article submission, blog submission and other aspects of off-page SEO to most relevant and quality sites.

35.What mistakes you should avoid while optimizing the website?

A.The main mistakes that should be avoided are filling keywords in webpage, employing identical anchor text for link building, keyword stuffing, getting low quality backlinks etc.

36.Define and Differentiate Webmaster Tool & Analytics Tool?

A.Webmaster Tool is a free service catered by Google which provide us a complete report for indexing data, crawling errors, backlink information, search queries, website malware errors, CTR and submitting an XML sitemap. Basically, it acts as a mediator between website and server provide a complete overview of data, issues and other queries.

37.What is the meaning of competitive analysis?

A.Competitive analysis, as its name suggested it is the establishment of a comparison of data between the website I am optimizing and that website who rank highly in search results. It will be a great source of ideas.

38.What do you know about Keyword stemming?

A. It is the practice to find out root word from search query. For instance, a keyword like playful will be split to the word play by stemming algorithm that turns it possible. Thus, the search result appears on the screen will contain the word play in it.